[R-sig-teaching] Undergraduate finance

[Nick Carchedi]

Hi Geoff, we've got a number of finance and time series related R courses
on DataCamp, taught by some great people like Jeff Ryan and Rob Hyndman.
We've made DataCamp free for use in classrooms, so it won't cost you or
your students anything. More info if you're interested:

* https://www.datacamp.com/groups/education
* https://www.datacamp.com/tracks/quantitative-analyst-with-r

Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions. Hope this helps!

-- 
Nick Carchedi
Director of Content
nick at datacamp.com
617-775-9373

On November 14, 2017 at 8:19:18 PM, Randall Pruim (rpruim at calvin.edu) wrote:


Here are my main suggestions:

1. Less Volume, More Creativity!
2. Use RStudio Server if you can.
3. Take advantage of (or create) learnr tutorials

Here’s a bit more detail.

There are lot of packages/authors/functions/etc out there. You need to be
selective in what you choose. It is not enough to get R to do what you want
done, you need the suite of tools you introduce to students to play well
together. The less you use R in the course, the more important this is. The
particular suite you choose will depend on the goals you have for your
course and your students, the availability of functions/packages to support
those goals, and your personal preferences (regarding things like style of
API).

I’ve given numerous presentations with the Less Volume, More Creativity
theme (example:
http://cvc.mosaic-web.org/Summer2017/Learn/LessVolume/LessVolume.html) —
but not always with the same underlying set of commands. Here are some
suites that I think work well together.

* mosaic package + lattice graphics (I now prefer ggformula graphics)
* mosaic package + ggformula graphics
* tidyverse (dplyr, readr, tidyr, etc.)

If you make it your goal to keep the set of R commands you teach as lean
and consistent as possible, while still capable of doing what you need,
then are heading in the right direction. I would start with the things you
are quite sure you will need/want to use (For me this was formulas, since I
knew I would need them for models. That moved me to lattice graphics
originally, and ggformula graphics now and led us to include many things in
the mosaic package to make numerical summaries follow that same basic
template.) Work your way out from there — always asking “do I really need
this? and does this play well with the other things on my list?

Using an RStudio server means that (a) your students don’t have to install
anything and (b) you can ensure everyone has the same working environment
(installed packages, etc.) It also safeguards against things like computer
failure. (If you have enough students, someone will fall asleep in the top
bunk sending their laptop crashing to the floor…)

learnr tutorials are very easy to write and provide a great way to
demonstrate to your students how the things you have chosen work.
Interactive R sessions, and quizzes can be embedded in the tutorials.
Here’s an example: http://rsconnect.calvin.edu/ggformula/introduction/. I
expect more of these will become available as more people see how easy they
are to construct and how helpful they can be.

—rjp





On Oct 2, 2017, at 2:03 PM, Geoffrey Smith <gps at asu.edu<mailto:gps at asu.edu>>
wrote:

Hello,


I am teaching an undergraduate course in Investments next semester and I
would like to incorporate a little R programming into it. Does anyone have
any teaching tips or textbook suggestions?


Thank you.


Geoff


Geoffrey Smith

Clinical Associate Professor of Finance

WP Carey School of Business

Arizona State University

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